Hi. I am having issues with my dog eating too fast. He's almost 10 months old. I have already tried two different bowls designed to slow him down eating, they don't work. Feeding him 4 smaller meals over the day is not feasible because I work. I tried the tennis ball in the bowl and did not work. He's eating so fast he's literally sputtering and gagging every other meal, and this is with the "special" bowls. He leaves for hunting training for 2 months in just a couple of weeks and I am really worried with that activity he's going to get bloat. How can I fix this?

If bolting food like a maniac caused GDV half the labs in the US would die of bloat every year. While I have seen a few dogs torse after guzzling massive quantities of water very rapidly most GDV is in older dogs and likely is due to disturbances of gastric motility. Choking can be a concern but I'm not sure floating the food will alleviate that. mixing in some canned food (reduce the dry accordingly) will make a stickier mass that might slow him down. Feeding from a raised stand may decrease his ability to maneuver the bowl around and thus slow him chasing the stray kibbles. If he approaches every meal like he hasn't eaten in a month dumping dry kibble on the ground could result in increased aerophagia(swallowing air) which is sub optimal if you are worried about GDV. Really though I see a lot of dogs eat as though it were a race and it doesn't generally cause a problem.

There is one paper that suggested that Doc, but data isn't great. Some of the military data seems to suggest that rapid rises in barometric pressure are involved???? Most of these studies are questionable "retrospective" studies. The dogs being fed from elevated bowls prior to GDV due to breed (Danes). I think the best strategy is to try and mix in some canned food so he has to actually grab chunks of the canned/dry mixture instead of ridiculously "vacuuming" up the kibble. The real goal is to limit aerophagia. Again excepting great Danes GDV is a rare event. If one is really concerned you could seek a prophylactic pexy.

Thanks for all the responses. The trainer he's going to suggested tossing some out in the grass for him so I tried that and let him sniff it out and eat. When it's rainy I've used the cookie sheet, slows him down quite a bit and the added benefit of waking up the household by crashing around the kitchen chasing a cookie sheet!

The Griph has eaten like its going to be made illegal in 60 Seconds ,all of his ten years . I mentioned it to a big dog vet He raises and hunts Goldens , his take was ,they mostly all do that . I put hot water on the Orijen kibble , just to make it Slippery , a little pumpkin and yogurt . He mastered the Slo Bowl pretty quickly , it did knock a few seconds off . I had Labs , great line about the bloat , Labs have built in gas release , the Griph might have cut one 2 or 3 times in his whole life , to refined lol .

I too have a dog that eats like it was his last meal. I started with a muffin tin... just a couple of kibbles in each hole. It helped a lot.

Have also used the throw it on the floor method for both dogs that gulp their food, and for picky eaters. Allowing them to hunt for their food seems to make it more interesting for the non eaters,, and surely slows down the gulpers.